6 ms·

How about fake reviews? That's a whole industry deceiving people with Amazon's blessing. I can't even fathom the economic impact of the practice over the years.

How about fake reviews? That's a whole industry deceiving people with Amazon's blessing. I can't even fathom the economic impact of the practice over the years. And another one: Amazon Basics. Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. Much like they do with open source in AWS. They should get hit with billions, but one can only hope.

hyperbovine 3y ago
Curious that a competitor has not sprung up to address this problem head-on...
- barbazoo 3y ago
  Probably hard with a behemoth like Amazon having so much influence on the market.
  - hyperbovine 3y ago
    Yes, that is my point.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  There are multiple online shops, usually addressing a bit of the market each. People use them IME.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
> Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. But these are the things that are pro-competitive. So now they make batteries. They're not putting Energizer out of business, they can still sell through Walmart or local convenience stores etc., and some customers still buy Energizer batteries on Amazon, but now customers have a new option for batteries from a well-known brand with lower prices. Obviously the competitors don't like this -- they're losing business to new competition -- but new competition is good. Where you run into problems is where companies leverage a dominant market position in one area into abusive practices in another. So for example, if Amazon had a monopoly on retail, they could demand huge margins for reselling a competitor's batteries, or just stop carrying competing batteries and charge high prices for their own because customers have no other option. But they have no such market power. If they tried to charge significantly more than competing retailers for basic commodities, customers would just buy them from whoever has the best price. Compare this to, for example, mobile app stores where customers in practice have one store provided by the phone platform and if that store charges high margins or doesn't carry something they want, they have to buy a different device for hundreds of dollars, over a $1 app. Also, there are only two platforms of note so if you dislike any practice shared by both of them you're out of luck, whereas in an ordinary retail market there are a zillion competing retailers.
- totallywrong 3y ago
  You described a perfect market scenario, where all players start on common ground and compete between them. Now imagine you have access to all the data from your competitors. Sales numbers, A/B testing on images and descriptions, keywords, etc. It might be good for customers, but it sure isn't ethical and I personally see it as being monopolistic in a way, as in "I'm copying you with your data and you know it, but can't leave my platform because there's no real alternative".
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    You don't have all the data from your competitors. You only have the data from your own system. And every retailer has the data from their own system. And the data has diminishing returns with scale. And some of the retailers will sell it to anyone who pays. Moreover, what should businesses use to determine whether to enter a market or how to price their offerings? A dart board doesn't make for an efficient market. It sounds like you're objecting to someone other than the incumbents having access to the threshold amount of data needed to know whether it's worth entering their market. If the existing competitors were already charging thin margins in a highly competitive market then Amazon could look at the data all they want but their conclusion would be that it makes no sense to enter that market. When that isn't the case, the "victims" of this practice are some other abusive conglomerates with sour grapes.
m463 3y ago
Fake reviews are a real mess in the amazon ecosystem. I was trying to find an airfryer cookbook for one specific model, and they all seem to be auto-generated (chatgpt?) with nothing that is model-specifc. And all the reviews appear to be auto-genereated as well. sigh.

hyperbovine 3y ago

Curious that a competitor has not sprung up to address this problem head-on...

barbazoo 3y ago
Probably hard with a behemoth like Amazon having so much influence on the market.
- hyperbovine 3y ago
  Yes, that is my point.
robertlagrant 3y ago
There are multiple online shops, usually addressing a bit of the market each. People use them IME.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

> Free market research with the data from your paying sellers, to then enter a market with a product you know will sell, in a position of dominance. But these are the things that are pro-competitive. So now they make batteries. They're not putting Energizer out of business, they can still sell through Walmart or local convenience stores etc., and some customers still buy Energizer batteries on Amazon, but now customers have a new option for batteries from a well-known brand with lower prices. Obviously the competitors don't like this -- they're losing business to new competition -- but new competition is good. Where you run into problems is where companies leverage a dominant market position in one area into abusive practices in another. So for example, if Amazon had a monopoly on retail, they could demand huge margins for reselling a competitor's batteries, or just stop carrying competing batteries and charge high prices for their own because customers have no other option. But they have no such market power. If they tried to charge significantly more than competing retailers for basic commodities, customers would just buy them from whoever has the best price. Compare this to, for example, mobile app stores where customers in practice have one store provided by the phone platform and if that store charges high margins or doesn't carry something they want, they have to buy a different device for hundreds of dollars, over a $1 app. Also, there are only two platforms of note so if you dislike any practice shared by both of them you're out of luck, whereas in an ordinary retail market there are a zillion competing retailers.

totallywrong 3y ago
You described a perfect market scenario, where all players start on common ground and compete between them. Now imagine you have access to all the data from your competitors. Sales numbers, A/B testing on images and descriptions, keywords, etc. It might be good for customers, but it sure isn't ethical and I personally see it as being monopolistic in a way, as in "I'm copying you with your data and you know it, but can't leave my platform because there's no real alternative".
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  You don't have all the data from your competitors. You only have the data from your own system. And every retailer has the data from their own system. And the data has diminishing returns with scale. And some of the retailers will sell it to anyone who pays. Moreover, what should businesses use to determine whether to enter a market or how to price their offerings? A dart board doesn't make for an efficient market. It sounds like you're objecting to someone other than the incumbents having access to the threshold amount of data needed to know whether it's worth entering their market. If the existing competitors were already charging thin margins in a highly competitive market then Amazon could look at the data all they want but their conclusion would be that it makes no sense to enter that market. When that isn't the case, the "victims" of this practice are some other abusive conglomerates with sour grapes.

m463 3y ago

Fake reviews are a real mess in the amazon ecosystem. I was trying to find an airfryer cookbook for one specific model, and they all seem to be auto-generated (chatgpt?) with nothing that is model-specifc. And all the reviews appear to be auto-genereated as well. sigh.